Lakeshore Corporation — Attraction in Kirkland

Dear prospective renters who are considering renting via Lakeshore. Here are things you might want to know, but Lakeshore may not tell you. So, I would like to share what we know from our experience to you.

Utilities: W/S/G bills, in a property we rented, are sent to the owner and Lakeshore does the calculation for each unit and bill to us via online portal. The calculations or the portion of each unit are sometime shown in the copy of the bills posted online, sometime it's not. The charges from Lakeshore are on average $150-$170 every other month, but we have also been billed for up to $1,050 for this unit at one point with no proper explanation or rationale of how the number is calculated. The only way to dispute the charge is probably to take them to a small claim court. BUT don't expect to actually get any reasonable explanation for any calculation. We found inconsistent in how they calculate utilities each months and raised the question to Linda, the accountant, and ask for adjustment, but never got the any respond back. Because they know that calculated wrong, over charged us but didn't want to pay back. So, Linda just ignored and never responded. Super professional, right?

Lease term: The general term is 12 months, but Lakeshore can "accidentally" lose your lease agreement that both parties signed, or intentionally deleted it off from the "very convention online portal" from the 90s. Don't worry! They can accommodate you by giving you a new lease to sign with the new HIGHER rate before your actual lease end. If you don't sign, they may politely force you to move out. Make sure to safe a copy of your original signed lease!

Maintenance request: There's a nice online portal (the same one from the 90s) you can fill out a maintenance request, including when there's a flood in the laundry room in the basement. There will be people respond and close those tickets for you right away, only the tickets! The actual fix MAYBE follow. Don't keep the hope up that everything will be fix at the root cause though.

Water quality: If you are away or don't use any water for more than 24 hours, the water will come out yellow, and you may want to keep the water running for a while to clear the pipe from whatever sat in there. Maybe you can try open the ticket via that nice online portal to have them fix all the piping system. Most of us who lived there end up buy drinking water most of the time (another hidden cost that come with the cheap rent).

Neighborhood: Lakeshore may advertise properties that they manages are all in the great up and coming neighborhood. The truth, they are on the edge of those neighborhoods. We have had people solicited, knocked on our door, and asked for money before. We have heard gun shots, and people fighting. Hence, the rent is so cheap compare to other properties.

Security Deposit: Make sure you calculate that into the lost cost of renting from Lakeshore. Don't expect them to comply with any law or RCW. They would claim that the property owner hold the deposit and it's the owner's call to pay, even though they make the decision on what to charge from deposit. Yet when you inquire for any information, they (Britney, Todd, and Linda) will surely ignore and give no respond, no matter how many emails and phone calls you make to beg them to get your own money. The only way to get any information or answer out of Lakeshore is to sue them in court again. At the court, Lakeshore's employee would still lie to you about payment and show untrustworthy document that can easily manipulate to claim for outrageous charges even in court! Lakeshore also lied during the court settlement that the checked had already paid and was on the mail before the court date, therefore there's nothing else pending from them. However, the check we received from the bank was issued and dated AFTER the court date!

SO imagine how much money this company can make by keep forfeiting large amount of deposits from all tenants, but not large enough that people can invest their time to go to small claim court just to have...

Lakeshore really does a great job of luring their renters into an "ignorance is bliss" mindset. Renters beware. Upon first appearance, they have a great rating. Except that most of their "great" ratings are from owners of properties. Responses from those using this company to manage thier properties are praises on how they guided them on rates, saving money on repairs, and protecting thier rental properties, not thier renters. My husband and I got charged almost $10,000 in damages after move out, a majority of which were wear and tear. Toilet paper dispensers falling off the wall, towel holders that became loose, loose faucets, picture and decor marks and scuffs and scrapes some of which were already in existence. Our walk through was done with a person that didn't even work for Lakeshore, and was a friend of the owner. They never did a co-formal walk through upon move out to assess or dispute any damages, and just sent us a bill with said damages with no invoices of work done just a scattered lump of gathered charges. Upon inquiring of said charges, they almost immediately said that the almost $1200 they were charging for "reseeding the lawn" hadn't actually been done. The lawn was shot when we moved in, and the soil on the property was not able to maintain a lawn in the first place, per testimony from our neighbors on both sides of us as the land was mostly clay. Landscaping was part of our rental agreement, yet they could never provide us with any kind of scheduled service, and had to reachout a number of times to get landscaping services rendered, and was never compensated in off season. Most of these charges were credited back upon pushback. We proceeded to pushback on their $3600 charge of drywall and construction work, which an invoice was never provided nor proof of work completed, due to the toilet paper dispensers falling out of the drywall, loose faucets, and loose towel holders, a non-replaced shower head that never worked in the first place due to initial construction and lightbulbs that didn't work. Mind the fact, that upon move in, our entire staircase was not properly intact or up to code posing potential life threatening injury to tenants. Upon pushback, these were credited almost in full. They tried charging us almost $400 for an "ant infestation" which they never provided proof of, and ended up walking back, as they could not provide proof of infestation, nor an invoice of work done, and ended up admitting, that said charges were "quotes" because as Todd the financial manager put it "well, someone had to do it..." We never had an issue with ants and why would we live with such a vast infestation and not report it? Todd eventually sent a mock invoice of work done, not by a vendor, but by "Lakeshore construction" only citing charges, not an outline of any services rendered, ie assestment, or steps taken of treatment. All this coupled with a snarky and unprofessional response that they have been to small claims court "many many times 😉", shows they are in the market for their vendors and not their renters. In the end, we ended up paying $1100 on top of our $4100 deposit, non-refundable $250 pet deposit and non-refundable $350 deposit. They suddenly seemed flexible when we spoke of small claims court, dropping what they said we owed by almost $4000. They took all of our deposit and an additional $1100, unfortunately for us that was the current equivalent of buying a bug zapper just to get rid of these mosquitoes and be done with them. Again, read the reviews. They are bias to the owners per positive reviews, and majority of the negative reviews are regarding outrageous move out charges. I'm sure to receive a "thanks for your kind words, hope you have a great day!" response as that seems to be their ...

These guys are awful. They are shady, don't send repairs when you need them, cancel appointments last minute, miss appointments (after taking work off to be home). The owner is a complete jerk and the majority of the staff are terrible at their jobs. They don't tell you until the last minute when they are having work done on their apartments. All in all they make it terribly inconvenient to live under their management. We had a fridge that was covered in mold behind all the vents and the seals. They made us wait weeks for cleaning and it made our food smell and taste like mold. We finally had to replace the fridge on our own because they wouldn't do anything. The people who lived in the unit before were heavy smokers, they didn't disclose this, or disclose that the neighbors smoked inside their unit which would come through the vents into our unit. They painted over nicotine and tar on our walls, eventually it came through because they use a thin coating of paint. Watch out for their high deposit, you will maybe get half back if you are lucky. They charged us for things that were broken or damaged prior to us even moving in. These people are only in it for the money and want as little contact from their tenants as it interferes with their profits. I will never live under their management again, it's been the worst experience of my life.

Geoff, who is the owner, is just a bad human being. If he's married and has a family I honestly feel bad for them. His first call to me was so awful I hired a lawyer because of the things he said. He threatened to charge us for maintenance work because there were so many underlying problems with the unit that we had a high amount of maintenance requests when we first moved in. I would echo the other sentiments to get a tape recorder when having an interaction with him. The other employees are incompetent. Brittany is dumb and just useless. The leasing agent Jesse (who posted a review on here!) is a liar or just a typically shady salesperson, said he would do the final walkthrough with us, but that was opposite of what management told us after the fact. Adam, the maintenance guy is not proficient in any skill set, just can do a bad job at a little bit of everything. You won't get anything actually fixed, they will just bandaid things so they can pay as little as possible. Todd, the head of maintenance seems to be clueless about how to communicate properly, last minute notices for work, constant apologies for missed work, etc.

The main problem with this company is that they know the laws and know that if you take them to court the outcome would depend on the judge. They put forth just enough effort to make the court case not worth attempting. I'm surprised more owners aren't pulling them from their management after seeing the reviews on here. It's a nightmare living under...